Danbury receives innovation planning grant from CTNext

Published 4:31 pm, Thursday, October 27, 2016

Some of the major players involved in Danbury receiving an innovation planning grant gathered Thursday, Oct. 27, 2016, at the Danbury Hackerspace to discuss the next steps of the process. The group included, left to right: PJ Prunty of CityCenter; Roger Palanzo of the Business Advocacy; state Rep. Bob Godfrey; Pauline Assenza of Western Connecticut State University; Mike Kaltschnee of Danbury Hackerspace; and Steve Bull of the Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce. less

Some of the major players involved in Danbury receiving an innovation planning grant gathered Thursday, Oct. 27, 2016, at the Danbury Hackerspace to discuss the next steps of the process. The group included, ... more

Danbury is working hard to become a hub of innovation and a $24,000 grant is expected to help the city further that mission.

CTNext announced this week that Danbury is one of 12 communities in the state to be awarded an Innovation Places Planning Grant. The grant allows the winners to conduct research to help better understand the needs of local entrepreneurs and create an environment to attract and retain innovative business owners.

The second phase of the process is the competitive implementation grant in which $30 million will be awarded over the next five years.

“We’re really excited about it,” Roger Palanzo, the city of Danbury’s business advocate, said. “There’s a lot of opportunity in Danbury to expand this innovation corridor.”

“It was a collaborative effort among a bunch of people,” Kaltschnee said. “The next phase will include a lot more people, businesses and the community.”

“We’re building a nonprofit so all stakeholders will have a say,” Kaltschnee said, referring to the Innovation Places Planning Committee. “We need a third party facilitator to help us pick the best project or projects for the grant.”

Kaltschnee said the next step will include public hearings so the group can hear from entrepreneurs and other innovators on what they need to thrive in the Danbury area. Recognizing the diversity of the city and the entrepreneurial spirit of the various minority groups, a multilingual website will be created with money from the grant so the group can receive additional feedback.

A matching grant aspect will be included in the next phase as well, so the group will be asking the business community to become more involved.

“We’ll use it (planning grant funds) to get together businesses, from huge to tiny, to get involved and make investments to make the vision become a reality,” Godfrey said. “This is very future looking. It’s job creating and even career creating. That’s what I find so exciting about it.”

Assenza said the ultimate goal is to attract and retain young entrepreneurs to the Danbury area.

“It’s about creating a place where people want to come and visit, and when they visit they want to stay. That’s the challenge,” she said. “The concept is to create an area that’s a magnet for talent. We want to pull in energy from the area.”

The planning grant amounts ranged from $24,000 to $50,000. The competitive implementation grant application will begin in November. Awardees will be announced in June 2017.

“These grants intend to support community efforts to build out a plan that will highlight the strengths of each community, assess the needs of entrepreneurs and talent, and create an action plan that will be submitted for additional grant funding through the Innovation Places program,” said Glendowlyn Thames, interim executive director for CTNext.

CTNext is a subsidiary of Connecticut Innovations, the state’s source of financing for innovative and growing companies. CTNext’s mission is to build “a more robust community of entrepreneurs and accelerate startup growth.”